Hey guys! Still in Italy. I’ll be back soon, I promise. Today we’re hanging out with Angela from over at Paleo Kitchen Lab. Angela Privin fell in love with Paleo cooking 10 years ago while searching for solutions to heal Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Now Paleo cooking is her creative outlet and grain free baking is a passion. When she’s not taking urban hikes with her dog or practicing Chi Gong, she enjoys experimenting with new recipes in her Paleo Kitchen Lab. (From Dana): I’m already drooling over these cupcakes when I’m writing this with no way to make them…so I hope you do!! Enjoy!
From Angela: Giving up grains wasn’t tough for me, but giving up dairy has been my challenge. So I consider myself Primal and have settled on reducing my dairy intake by 80 percent instead of cutting it out all together. My strategy for this is to replace the dairy in my diet with delicious dairy-free alternatives. For example, my favorite dessert has always been cheesecake.
I’ve found soaked and blended cashews to be a great replacement for cream cheese in cheese cake. Just sweeten the cashews and add some coconut cream and lemon juice and it tastes pretty similar to cheese cakes. They definitely satisfied my craving. My addition of salty cashew butter at the bottom and the fresh fig topping might have even made these better than actual cheese cake. You be the judge.
I love to improvise when I cook and always customize the recipes I’m following so I invite you to play around with the ingredients by swapping the fruit topping or adding your favorite mix ins or excluding ingredients you don’t like. If you makes these cupcakes I would love to see them on Instagram please tag me at @paleokitchenlab.
Other awesome things about these cupcakes: They need no baking and they are both Paleo and vegan. Who can argue with that?
- 1 cup of cashews (soaked in water overnight and drained)
- 1 lemon, juiced
- ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon of salt
- 2 Tablespoons of maple syrup
- 2 Tablespoons of ghee or coconut oil
- ½ can of coconut cream *
- ¼ cup of chocolate chips
- ¼ cup of cashew butter
- 1 or 2 sliced figs (or your favorite fruit for garnishing)
- optional: 1 teaspoon of grass fed gelatin (for a boost of nutrition)
- optional: ½ teaspoon of orange liquor
- Soak cashews overnight and drain the liquid.
- To make the cashew cream, put cashews in your food processor with the lemon juice, salt and vanilla, maple syrup, coconut cream, melted ghee or coconut oil and optional gelatin and process until its smooth.
- Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners and put a dollop of cashew butter in each and divide the chocolate chips between them.
- Spoon in the cashew cream mixture until full and top each cupcake with sliced figs.
- Put in the fridge for a couple of hours for the cashew cream to solidify. If you are an impatient type like me you can put the in the fridge for half and hour and in the freezer for 20 minutes and enjoy quicker!
